Samurai!

By: Martin Caidin

Narrated by: Kevin Waites

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Saburo Sakai became a living legend in Japan during World War II. Pilots everywhere spoke in awe of his incredible exploits in the air. Of all Japan’s aces, Saburo Sakai is the only pilot who never lost a wingman in combat. For a man who engaged in more than 200 aerial combats, this was an incredible achievement. His remarkable book Samurai! written by Martin Caiden but with the assistance of Sakai and Fred Saito is a brilliant account of life as a Japanese pilot in the Second World War.

Samurai! charts Sakai’s remarkable life from his lowly, poor origins, to signing up with the military at the age of 16, to his conflicts with American aircraft over Guadalcanal where he had the heavy fragments of two 50-caliber machine gun bullets embedded in his skull, through to the moment when Japan eventually surrendered. For many listeners Samurai! will do much to bring the Pacific air war into new perspective. The story of Saburo Sakai provides for the first time an intimate look into the “other side”.

Martin Caidin was an American author and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin was an airplane pilot as well, and bought and restored a 1936 Junkers Ju 52 airplane. Samurai! was first published in 1957, and Caidin passed away in 1997. Saburo Sakai was a Japanese naval aviator and flying ace who had 64 aerial victories. He passed away in 2000.

©2019 BN Publishing (P)2019 BN Publishing

One of the best ww2 books I’ve read

I’ve read over 200 books on WWII and this has to be one of my favorites. It’s so refreshing to read about the other side of the air war. The book reads like a movie and keeps your riveted for the next chapter of Saburo Sakai’s war experience.

Shamefully Edited but Magnificent Story

I've studied the Pacific Air Campaign in great detail, but never from the point of view of a Japanese pilot. This autobiography offers incredible insight as to the mindset of the Japanese people in WW2. Saburo Sakai was a true artist in telling his story. The narrator however, was horrible. Unprofessional and horrendously edited. The overdubbing overlapped every 20 minutes on average, (at best.) The editor left in all of the narrator's frustrated exclamations when he came across a word too difficult for his limited vocabulary. (Hopefully that was all, poor guy.) I'd have immediately fired my editor and found a new one had I listened to this travesty. Unfortunately the narrator did not. He did this amazing story a great injustice. "Shame" is the only word i have for the production team on this one. For Saburo Sakai, only thanks for relating his tale.

Excellent.

Very worthwhile. A story about an awesome and admirable man. Highly recommended and worth the read.

Great story, so-so narration with a few errors

It is important to realize that war memoirs are never 100% accurate, as memory is very malleable. On top of that, Martin Caidin does embellish some facts and mesh together stories, but overall the narrative is really good

There are some weird narration/editing errors in there, like awkward stutters or clips spliced over each other, but it is not the worst thing in the world.

While none of the errors made are deal breakers, aircraft names (towards the end mainly) are incorrect. Although, unless you are a big fan of 20th century aviation, it doesn’t really matter.

If you are looking for a rarely heard perspective on history, I would highly recommend this book. Saburo and Martin will make you change how you view Japanese pilots from this period

A great story of WW2 Japanese history

A very good telling of WW2 Japanese history. Refreshing hearing it from the other sides point of view and great learning just how great the Japanese aces were!

very poor narration

very poor narrator but great story if you can look past it. interesting to hear the other side of things

A classic Martin Cardin book

This is a classic Martin Cardin book about Japan’s highest scoring fighter pilot that survived WWII. The story is good and gives insight to “the other side”. Well worth a read.

Unfortunately, the reading is marred by many mispronunciations of non-English names and locations by the person who did the reading. Also, listening was made difficult by the reader not doing his job by pre-reading to himself to get the flow and punctuation of sentences right.

The story gets 4stars from me, but the performance only gets 2 stars.

Great book! Especially from the Japanese! side!

Very interesting! From start to finish! a very able fighter pilot! But also a very lucky one!

One of the best books I’ve ever listen to!

Way beyond expectations! This book is phenomenal and keep me on edge throughout the book. The perspectives of the aerial combat from the eyes of a Samurai class Japanese Ace of WWII is rare and in a very detailed recalling of the air battles. It’s got to be an audible classic and I had a hard time to stop listening because I felt glued to my headphones :-)!

Interesting But Worst Narration Ever!

For all of its flaws of this book and especially this recording, it is still worth the time for someone looking for an interesting aviation war story with lots of action from a completely different perspective that we typically see in the West. Saburo Sakai, the subject of this book, fought in China and in many Pacific campaigns - both winning and losing. He lived the meteoric rise and the eventual fall of the Japanese empire. He, therefore, provides a great perspective on the Japanese fighter pilot experience and how it evolved over the course of the war. He was there in the early days, when the Zero was supreme. He was there in the later days when his side just couldn't keep up with their enemies' tactics, manufacturing capacity, and technological innovation. So, there is a lot to learn here.

It's also exciting stuff. There are a ton of dogfights and flying adventures, many told in detail. (as a slightly surprising aside, I found it interesting that I just couldn't separate myself from an American focus, really feeling bad for the crews that Sakai shot down - even though the story is told from his, not their, perspective. When I read material told from the American perspective, I don't feel nearly so bad for the enemy pilots who are suffering from the same horrible fates.)

Not that the material is completely accurate. As, I guess, might be expected, Sakai never mentions the treatment of conquered people or prisoners of war. He once does refer to a brothel at Rabaul but never discusses how it was likely staffed with sex slaves. I also know that in aerial combat, kill totals are frequently inflated. While some of his kills have been documented in other literature I've read, I wonder if anyone has correlated his records with American & Australian records.

Finally, I can generally live with just about any narrator, and I managed to suffer through this one, but it was tough! There were many mispronunciations throughout the text and many places where a few seconds of audio are repeated and overlapped on each other. There was even one spot where the narrator seemed to record a phrase three times, hurling what I believe was an expletive after the second time. The reader's voice was fine and his attempt to add drama to some scenes was, I guess, forgivable but this title could really benefit from some serious editing. I don't mean to cast aspersions, especially if this was a recording done by the reader charitably for people who can't read, but this one is worth a redo,